


A Beginning

by TheQueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Happy Ending, Implied Future Klance, Keith (Voltron)-centric, M/M, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: Keith makes his decision halfway through math class, doodling pictures of penguins and fires in the corner of his note as the teacher reviews derivatives for the midterm.A Commission





	A Beginning

The day Keith drops out of high school, it’s raining.

It’s the first major rainstorm of the season: thick sheets of water splashing against pavement and roofs so it sounds less like rain and more like a stampede, broken only by the occasional flash of lighting and boom of thunder. All the weather reports promised turbulent storms for the rest of the week. A “friend” on facebook jokes it’s the end of the world.

Overall, it’s all appropriately cinematic. As if the stars have aligned just so to witness potentially the best-worst decision Keith will ever make. 

He makes his decision halfway through math class, doodling pictures of penguins and fires in the corner of his note as the teacher reviews derivatives for the midterm. It’s not a sudden realization, but rather a culmination. A final ah-ha that makes all the pieces and thoughts and half-discarded dreams click together. 

First, he realizes he’s miserable.

Keith… Keith knows he hasn’t been happy in a long goddamn time. Happy is something he associates with childhood and elementary school and being dared to eat paste in the middle of recess. 

Stress. Now stress is something Keith has grown intimately familiar with. Stress is an emotion that has followed him throughout his high school career, nipping at his heels every time he gets a 92 and below on an assignment and crawling down his spine every time he fails to defend a goal in soccer. It’s something that rips through his heart and turns into fear when his homeroom teacher hands him his report card and never really leaves even when he opens the paper to find all A’s. 

Then, he realizes it’s killing him. 

He watches through wide unseeing eyes as his peers pack up their school supplies before slogging off to their next subject, only moving to do the same after Jeremy accidentally bumps him on the shoulder. As he follows everyone else into the halls, he turns the thought over and over and over again in his head. 

Keith has never thought of dying. He wants to put it out there; he doesn’t think he’s suicidal. Suicide is too final and permanent and terrifying. It’s an act of violence he’s not interested in. No, Keith doesn’t want to die. 

But… but he doesn’t care if he dies either. If he died because of a car accident or food poisoning or a freak accident then oh well. He tries to think of something he’s looking forward to: Weekends visits with his dad? Watching the next Avengers movie? College? Love? Work? 

None of it feels right. None of it gets him excited like it should. Visiting his dad is nice, but the old man got on fine for the first 14 years of Keith’s life alone. He doubts his father would care if he wasn’t around for the next 14. Movies? Honestly, they’re all getting a bit boring. College means more stress. Love sounds terrifying. Adulthood sounds exhausting. 

He thinks about it all through English and Psychology, barely taking notes. Too preoccupied with the desperate need to find something to get up for tomorrow and realizes with a sinking feeling in his gut that he just can’t find it.

Why is he here? What is he trying to achieve?

He gets home and throws his book bag in the closet, curls up in bed, and goes to sleep. 

When his foster mom, Helen, reminds him to get up before leaving for work the next morning, he turns off the alarm and closes his eyes. 

When Helen comes home to find him still in bed, she asks if he’s sick or if he’s hurt. He shrugs and grunts and refuses to remove the cover from over his head. 

When his foster dad, Jack, brings him dinner, he forces himself to eat it because he feels guilty worrying them. 

The next day he goes back to school. 

.

Weirdly enough the only person who seems to care is Lance. 

Keith doesn’t get Lance. In a lot of ways, he likes Lance. Lance is nice, charming when he wants to be, funny even when he doesn’t mean to. He can be an asshole when he wants to be, though. Keith still remembers the disaster that was their group debate. They were supposed to be on the same side, but Keith is sure he spent longer arguing with Lance than he did the other team. 

“So where were you?” Lance demands, sliding down to sit next to him in the cafeteria, the normal chatter of the lunch room creating a sort of white noise.

Keith grunts and finishes the last of his sandwich. “Sick.”

“Sick?” Lance rolls his eyes. “You’re never sick.”

Keith shrugs and suddenly feels too hot and stuffy.  

“Well don’t make a habit of it,” Lance teases (Keith thinks he’s teasing but he’s never sure with Lance), “College apps deadlines are starting to roll in.”

“Right…” Keith frowns and grabs his bag. He thinks he’ll wait out the rest of lunch in the library. 

.

The next day he skips school again. 

.

And again.

.

And again.

.

“Are you sure you’re alright,” Helen asks, pressing a cool hand to his forehead three nights later. 

Keith shrugs and lets her fuss. 

“I’ll make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow,” she says finally, setting the soup on the nightstand. “If this is a bug I’ll have to tell your father you won’t be down this weekend.”

Keith just shrugs again. 

.

Doctor Greenburg is a small older woman coming to just above his elbow. Yet Keith has never met a person capable of filling a room like she could. She is the sort of person you expect to see on the stage or in the middle of the party: someone who commanded attention.

She’s been treating him since he was seven and he transferred to Austin from Hutto to live with the Brierwoods. She’d taken one look at Keith quietly scribbling away in one of the coloring books in the waiting room and decreed he was her favorite patient. Keith still isn’t sure if she meant it, but he likes to think she did. He likes to think she cares about him after all these years. 

So when she ushers Helen out of the room with a firm reminder that he’s sixteen and “sixteen year old boys have things they’d like to not say around their mothers,” he doesn’t protest. When she sits down in her rolling stool, looks him straight in the eye, and asks “What’s really wrong?” he finds it easy to tell her everything. 

It’s a relief to let the jumbled messy half-thoughts and fears out after they’d spent the last five days rolling around in his head. He even tells her the things he hadn’t dared to think about yet: that he’s tired of high school, that he doesn’t want to go back or go to college or to fall in love or get a job… that maybe all he wants to do now is sleep. 

Doctor Greenburg doesn’t judge or interrupt. She lets him say his piece until he has nothing left to say and he’s crying, thick sheets of water broken only by the occasional hiccup and muffled sob.

Then she gives him a few napkins and a lollipop before calling Helen back in. 

.

Three weeks later he’s officially pulled out of high school, registered in a few online classes, and on his way to meet his new therapist. 

.

Three years later he meets Lance in the middle of a dog park. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a story prompted by my good friend Jae! [ Please check out their art so you can learn more about their Skaterboi AU!](https://yongjae37.tumblr.com/)
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think! 
> 
> And please check out my tumblr: [thequeen117.tumblr.com/](https://thequeen117.tumblr.com/)


End file.
